Translating Telegram Beta for Android

The Telegram app can be translated by using the Translations website or Transifex. You can see what languages are available for translation, suggest translations, review, and vote. If your language does not exist in the list, you can wait until it gets added or send a request on Transifex to be added.

Tips you can use when translating

So, translating is pretty simple, but there are some rules which you have to apply to make the best translation ever. Let's see what you can do:

Keep things consistent The same things need to have the same names everywhere.

Be natural You don't have to always translate word for word, or everything. Sometimes it makes more sense to simply describe what the app does in your own language.

Look for translation of the same feature in other apps There are many apps with a similar concept. It will be much easier for users if things are consistent between labels in products from some competitors.

Make it sound beautiful Use good language, that would make the app look as if it was built in your region. Respect your language's grammar and style where possible.

Things must fit This last one will probably cause you the most problems in most languages. Sometimes you need to look to the surrounding phrases and change them for the problematic one to work.

The art of typography Text should be not just linguistically, but also typographically and aesthetically correct. Please, approach the text as a magazine editor would and try to make it blend in with the design.

If you want to join the translation team and see how many not translated strings are available, you can use Transifex. It also gives you the option to download and test external language packs from there. To apply a .xml language pack, send (or receive) the file via Telegram (attached as ‘file’), download it, then tap on it to see the menu. After that select ‘Apply localization file’. You will see a language selection menu with the language from the file as one of the options.

Changing the app language in Telegram to one of the officially supported ones is also pretty straight-forward. You just need to head into the settings and select Language.

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